Write. Share. Communicate.

Category Archives: Writing

There aren’t a lot of how-tos for planning a wedding at the end of the world.

My fiancé and I chose the theme early on, and for the past eight months, we’ve been making it up as we go along.

Like many of my most brilliant ideas, this one started out as a “Wouldn’t it be funny if …”

That’s how I ended up with a dog named Grandma Moses, chalk art of a great white shark on my dining room wall, and yes, an apocalypse-themed wedding scheduled for Dec. 22, 2012 — the day after the world (or just the Mayan calendar) is supposed to end.

It’s no great secret that my fiancé and I are not the most traditional of couples. He’s an artist, and I’m, well, I have a lot of notions about “things that would be funny.”

Don’t get me wrong — we like pretty things too, and wrote off a good number of our early ideas with my 85-year-old grandmother in mind. The reception in the abandoned warehouse, for one. “Road Warrior” dress code, for another.

Chuck also poo-pooed my idea of a dried and dusty bouquet. Because, hello, flowers are not going to survive Armageddon with the Twinkies and the cockroaches.

“I want you to still look pretty at our wedding,” he said. On second thought, I realized that I, too, would like to look pretty at our wedding.

So a new phase of planning was born. We would reference the apocalypse at every occasion, but try to avoid the literal.

We’re planning an apocalypse-themed party, after all. Not the apocalypse itself.

“What are your wedding colors?” asked the caterer, my bridesmaids, the florist. I’m not sure any of them really anticipated the answer.

Fire and brimstone, naturally.

We scheduled our engagement photos for a Sunday in August. Earlier in the summer, I’d procured two civilian-issue gas masks on Amazon.com, which we toted along to our photo shoot in the park. We took some pretty photos first. For my grandmother. Then our sport of a photographer sweet-talked a sunbather into donning one of the masks, and the real fun began.

My fiancé drew our save-the-dates. Me, Chuck and our dog Grandma Moses in our best wedding attire, with a backdrop of oozing volcanos. Our invitations feature a bride and groom walking away from a mushroom cloud. The hashtag is #ARMAWEDDIN.

“Are you disappointed that it’s not, you know, a normal wedding?” friends asked my fiancé’s mother. “It doesn’t matter to me,” she told them. “It’s all about Halley and Chuck, and this is who they are.”

Yes, we’re a bit kooky — I’ve learned (courtesy of Pinterest) that I fall into the category of “offbeat bride” — but here’s a secret I’ve learned in my eight months of Armaweddin’ planning. Wedding planning is so fun and easy when the theme is “end of the world.” It’s just like planning a really big, really expensive theme party.

Chair sashes? Pfft. Like anyone’s going to have time to grab those when the world’s ending anyway. And when a wedding craft doesn’t turn out as planned? No big deal — that just makes it all the more apocalyptic.

Our dinner will be grilled cheese, soups and stews. Comfort food, for a post-apocalyptic world. I’ll walk down the aisle to a pretty string quartet version of R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It.” The flowers will be crazy, spiky, fiery.

“Is it safe to say ‘quirky?'” the florist asked tentatively, nervous to offend. I’d just finished describing an elegant calla lily bouquet I’d seen at a recent wedding and told her to please make mine the opposite of that.

Our wedding centerpieces were designed around the theme of “things you’d forage for after the apocalypse.” I think “quirky” is a safe description. Drippy, red and orange tapered candles in wine bottles painted matte black, clustered on mirrored tiles a girlfriend and I spent a morning distressing with muriatic acid.

My dress is the real deal. Ivory lace with a chapel-length train and its fair share of bling. That’s a little girl fantasy I wasn’t willing to let go of. Chuck and his groomsmen have slate gray suits with black shirts. We briefly entertained wilder fantasies, but couldn’t quite fathom how we’d explain leather and shotguns to our future grandchildren.

I’m not yet sure how we’ll explain the Fallout-esque bottle caps strewn around the room, or the survival tool favors with the radioactive diamond ring symbol Chuck designed, but we have a few decades to hammer out those details.

For now, all that matters is that later this month we’ll be facing down the apocalypse together, and there’s no one I’d rather have by my side. It’ll be the end of the world as we know it — and I feel fine.

We’d had the reservation for nine months when April 2 finally rolled around.

Terrified of repeating my mistakes in late, lackadaisical booking of summer 2010 and missing my chance to live like a hamster two Europe trips in a row, I’d frantically emailed the proprietor of La Villa Hamster the same day we booked this year’s tickets to France.

A rodenty night for two in April 2012? Booked in July 2011? No problem. My bimonthly email confirmations were overkill, perhaps, but set my mind at ease.

I’d been dreaming of a trip to the famed hamster hotel for years. And by years, I mean ever since this November 2009 Guardian article first caught my eye.

The vision was realized by Un Coin Chez Soi, a company that hosts a variety of offbeat guest rooms, with themes like school, Captain Nemo’s voyage, and, of course, hamster, throughout the city of Nantes. (An otherwise average Bretagne city, Nantes is known mainly for being the birthplace of Lu cookies. It’s also one of Seattle’s 21 sister cities and regular host to a University of Washington study abroad program.)

The arrival

It wasn’t particularly simple to make a one-night detour to Nantes as we made our way from Italy back to Paris, but I was bound and determined to finally have my night in the hamster hotel – and my patient fiancé Chuck knew better than to argue.

We arrived in Nantes on a Monday afternoon, busing our way to the city center and dragging wheeled suitcases through winding cobblestone streets (even better than the Shake Weight, I tell you). All we had was an address and a printed email with cryptic French instructions.

On your left when you enter the courtyard, you will find a small crevice in the wall, containing a small lockbox. Enter the following code to find the key to the Villa Hamster. When you depart, simply leave the 109 euro on the counter, and return the key to the lockbox.

We knew we were on the right track when the lockbox popped open to reveal a key simply labeled “Hamster.” A few steps into the courtyard, and we found ourselves facing a nondescript door with a small red sticker of a hamster over the handle. Bingo.

La vie hamster

From the moment we stepped through the door, the villa was more hamstery than we had ever imagined – right down to the musty hamster smell. We immediately donned the furry hamster headdresses, opting not to touch the hamster tail belts that were also provided for us.

A human-sized exercise wheel fills most of the room, strategically locking and becoming a bench to maximize space.

Next to the wheel is a ladder extending up a bed that hangs suspended over the room. A plastic headboard filled with sawdust and a pile of blankets with the instructions “faites votre lit comme un hamster,” or “make your bed like a hamster.”

Sawdust, cages and hamster toys decorate the rest of the tiny studio, which also features a corner water trough so you can drink like a hamster.

A sprinkle of sawdust splays out from the sawdust wall behind the toilet, dusting the plunger, toilet brush and scrubber with delicate shavings.

A frightening piece of hamster art in the corner features a giant, metal rodent face with two LED as eyes.

The villa is centrally located and fully equipped with a kitchenette, so hamster-loving guests could conceivably live there for weeks.

We spent a good portion of the evening mulling over the perfect farewell message to add to the chalkboard wall, already covered with chalk illustrations of hamsters and scrawled messages from visitors all over the world.

“Vive la vie hamster!” declared one.

“I don’t know whether to use the sawdust or the toilet,” wondered another guest, giving Chuck and I pause while we considered the potential sources of the villa’s musty scent.

In the end, we opted for simplicity – and then promptly forgot what we’d chosen. Surely it was poignant, whatever it was.

Deans, faculty disagree on value, necessity of independent contractor’s work

[Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Moscow, Idaho, May 30, 2009]

May 30–Magaly Rodriguez lives in Minnesota and occasionally travels to the University of Idaho to serve as an independent consultant and “Chief Inspiration Officer.” The UI pays her $12,500 a month for her services, according to public records obtained by the Daily News.

Rodriguez is held on retainer by the UI, on a nine-month appointment that expires in June. The contract totals $112,500 and was signed during the same academic year that state holdbacks forced the UI to cut about $3.8 million from its budget.

She spends anywhere from zero to 10 days in Moscow per month, according to the contract between Rodriguez and the UI.

Deans and other administrators say the retainer with Rodriguez and consulting company Volentum is well worth the money spent, but the faculty who have participated in their workshops tell a different story.

While one dean praised the calming effect of the sessions, a professor likened them to “being sedated.” Provost Doug Baker said Rodriguez’s consulting is one tool in adopting the university’s strategic plan. He said she is “absolutely” worth the money.

“She’s helping us reshape our culture,” Baker said.

Rodriguez said she helps do that by building “global peacemaking communities,” and she claims to have coined the term “peacemaking.”

“If you want to know kind of really what I do, I’m interested in building communities,” she said in a phone interview Friday.

College of Science Dean Scott Wood called on Volentum’s services this February, when the university was considering the elimination of its undergraduate degrees in physics. Rodriguez stepped in to facilitate a two-day workshop that ultimately helped save the program.

“We obviously got to a resolution,” Wood said. “I’m not convinced we would have gotten there without Magaly’s help.” He said he’d bring her back “in a heartbeat.” But physics professor Francesca Sammarruca wrote in an e-mail that she felt the workshop focused mainly on sharing feelings and resolving personal conflicts, while the problem facing the physics department did not arise from interpersonal conflicts.

“When I heard of a workshop with a professional facilitator, I was expecting a roundtable with a neutral moderator (who is knowledgeable in physics, science, and institutional planning). That would have been a format appropriate to the circumstances,” she wrote.

“The point is that her services cannot help with problems such as ours. The problem arose from a hasty decision. That decision needed to be discussed openly and thoroughly between the people involved in a (moderated) professional meeting, and at a much lower cost.”

Such retainer is “outrageous,” Sammarruca wrote, especially when everyone is being told to save money and resources where they can.

“That kind of money can support (seven) graduate students each month,” she wrote. “That’s a way to really help a department.”

Rodriguez’s travel, lodging and meal expenses are paid for by the university, but deducted from the $12,500 she receives monthly. In fact, she takes home more pay during the months when she does not visit the university in person, and consults with administrators via telephone instead.

Baker has employed Rodriguez on an independent consulting basis for more than a year. She and Volentum have signed one-time contracts for amounts from $10,000 to $15,500 for workshops that took place prior to the start of her retainer contract.

The $12,500 isn’t the sole cost each month. For each workshop there also are refreshments to be purchased and equipment to be rented. One day’s lunch at a workshop for deans and administrators in May 2008 cost the UI $1,078.74.

But Baker said it is typical for a university to spend this kind of money on independent consultants.

“I think the university brings in that expertise on a variety of things,” he said. “You sometimes want to have (someone) on retainer for a period of time, and you do that to bring expertise that you don’t have.” Baker said he does not yet know whether the contract with Volentum will be renewed after June. That decision will depend on the university’s budgetary capabilities.

Patricia Hartzell has been through about three Volentum workshops with the department of microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry.

“I’m really perplexed as to what (administrators) thought the outcome would be, how it would change our life. Because it didn’t,” said Hartzell, a professor in the department. “I think they think they were successful.”

Many other faculty members interviewed for this story declined to be quoted, citing “fear of retaliation.” Although they did not want their names used, their stories were the same. The consensus among them is Rodriguez is “a lovely person,” and is good at what she does. They question, however, her necessity to the university.

Faculty both on and off the record agree on another point: they feel patronized, and said the real issues are being swept under the carpet.

“The workshop reminded me of the “I’m OK, you’re OK,” workshops back in the 1970s. It focuses on improved relations, rather than solving problems,” computer science professor Paul Oman wrote in an e-mail.

“The department members get along better, but we still have the same fundamental problems because all we do is agree to disagree rather than move in one direction for the good of the department.”

Licensed psychologist W. Rand Walker said the field has advanced significantly farther than the Volentum materials that he has reviewed.

“It is reminiscent of techniques that were developed in the 1960s by Carl Rogers and other humanistic psychologists,” said Walker, who has published materials on communication and therapeutic techniques.

“It is also the same techniques that are used in ‘Natural Helpers’ programs that are used with junior high school students.” Walker said the role consultants play in a university setting is important and shouldn’t be diminished.

“There are legitimate places for this, but you don’t pay $112,000 for it,” he said.

The computer science department had its first Volentum workshop in early 2008. Minutes from a faculty meeting last March summarize departmental reactions to the two-day retreat.

“While there appeared to be a general consensus that the retreat was beneficial, there were considerable mixed reactions to the specifics of the retreat,” read the minutes.

Specific comments reflect positively on the communication tools taught by Rodriguez, but include questions such as “Now what?” and “Can we address the real problems without her?”

Faculty in numerous departments that have participated in Volentum workshops have said they feel the same way.

“I thought and I still think that she is a very nice woman and what she says is good information,” Hartzell said. “But I don’t think it solved our problems.”

Baker, however, believes most people have enjoyed and benefitted from their experiences with Rodriguez.

“I suspect you do have some sample bias,” he said. “My assessment is she’s done a pretty successful job.”

It’s been almost a year since I last updated this, so I figured it was time for an update.

For those of you who’ve just found this site, it’s a blog chronicling 11 months that I spent living in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris from August 2006 – July 2007. While I was there I worked as an au pair for a Franco-American family with four children, and lived rent-free in a studio apartment they also owned, while studying political science at l’Institut des Etudes Politiques de Paris, or Sciences Po.

Since I began writing this I’ve had so many e-mails from people letting me know that it’s been a helpful resource for them. Many of them will be attending Sciences Po, or studying abroad in Europe, or just planning a trip. I never thought anyone would actually find this useful, but I’m so glad it has been! For this reason, I’ve decided to leave this particular site up as it is. If I embark on any new adventures I think are worth recording, I’ll throw a link up here.

I’ve been back in the United States for 11 months now, finishing up my B.A. at the University of Washington. On June 14th, I graduated with a major in international studies and a minor in French. I was originally a French major, but realized hastily upon returning from studying abroad that I’d need to add a fifth year to complete all the required coursework.

Last fall I did an internship at Seattle Weekly, an alternative newspaper, and I wrote for my school newspaper for the last few months of school.

At the beginning of July I moved to Moscow, Idaho to take a job at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. I’m now a legitimate journalist, being paid to write stories. I even have my own beat (education). So far I love it.

I’ve only been home for a week and I’m already up to my ears in two questions. How was Paris? and Is it weird to be back? For the record, France was good and it’s weird but nice to be back in the states.

These aren’t bad questions – on the contrary. It’s just that they’re, well, very large questions. Paris was friendlier than I’d expected it to be, Paris smelled like urine, Paris’s air was dirty, but its parks and sidewalks were clean. Paris was exhilarating. Paris was hard and scary and amazing. Yeah, Paris was good. What else is there to say?

As for being home, It’s been surprisingly easy to fit back into my Tacoma routine – hanging out with my mom during the day, running with the dog and driving to Seattle to meet friends in the evening. I’ve lived here all my life, so being home is just like being home. The only oddnesses arise when my mind tries to superimpose Parisian life on Tacoman.

Driving through a parking lot in Gig Harbor a few days ago, I was positive I’d seen a young guy wearing a Front National tee shirt. The Front National, for those who already find Paris slipping away from them, is the right-wing extremist party in France, the one whose chef has been called everything from racist to xenophobic to anti-Semitic.

Mom, that guy’s wearing a National Front shirt, go back, go back! After a furtive circle back through the parking lot, with me hanging out the window with my camera, we determined that he was actually wearing a Sherwin-Williams paint shirt. On second glance, it looked nothing like the FN logo, my mind was just compensating for what I’d expected to see.

Then there was the day I realized I’d bought a shirt in the wrong size – the only problem was that I’d bought it on clearance on a second mark-down. I was ready to just throw it away and go buy a new shirt, but my mom stopped me. What are you talking about, of course you can exchange that. I could hardly believe it. In France, I’d thrown away purses and given away a replacement part of a coffee pot that I couldn’t exchange without receipts or because I’d waited too long to do it. In the U.S., you can take anything back, anytime. I remember once in middle school I’d bought a pair of new white Jack Purcell sneakers from Nordstrom, and worn them for two months before they started to disintegrate. My mom sent me back to the store to complain about the fact that they’d only lasted two months, and I walked out with a brand new pair of shoes. I suppose I’ve gotten used to stricter policies.

A few days later, my mom and I took the dog (Scout) for a walk. After winding our way down by Stadium High School, around Wright Park and down 6th Avenue, we stopped at the Corina Cake Bakery for some pie. Scout is a very small dog, and quite enjoys being carried, so without thinking, I bent to scoop him up, asking It’s fine to bring him in if I hold him, right? Judging by the incredulous look on my mom’s face, it apparently wasn’t. They serve food here. Instead I tied him up outside, but right next to the door so he could peek in at us while we snacked. After about five minutes, an employee went outside to move him farther from the door. The no dogs in restaurants rule should be so obvious – I don’t want to eat next to someone else’s pet, but a year of an anything goes attitude on the pet front has conditioned me otherwise.

Aside from these brief moments of confusion, I haven’t yet felt a real explosion of culture shock. The fact that everyone speaks English here seems totally normal, as did the fact that SeaTac airport customs was crowded with high school students in cut-off miniskirts trying to sneak their duty-free alcohol back into the U.S.

It’s more the little things that, while they don’t exactly shock me, definitely remind me that I’m not in Paris anymore. The fact that I’m now carded everywhere I go, but that bars are required to be smoke-free. That chocolate chips go for two dollars a bag, rather than seven euro, and I no longer have to spend half an hour chopping up Nestlé chocolate bars before I can bake cookies. That it’s okay to venture outside in sweatpants – heck, I could even go out to dinner in sweatpants if I was so inclined. Having a real-life boyfriend, and a car to drive. Not being referred to as Anglo-Saxon five times a day.

Rather than a clash of cultures, it’s hundreds of these little things every day that remind me where I am and where I am not, and make it impossible to decide if I’m happy, sad or “weird” to be back.

••• I’m having a bout of indeciciveness, so if you’ve got the time, check out these new title options and tell me which you like best!

As smoothly as our trip to Israel always seemed to go, Rachael and my flight home was another story altogether. Tuesday morning we left Tel Aviv with more than three hours to spare before our flight left – but a Hebrew/English miscommunication at the train station sent us nearly an hour in the wrong direction. By the time we figured it out (a security guard kicking us off the train at the last stop on the line) and made it back to Ben Gurion International, we had just 50 minutes to spare before our flight was scheduled to leave.

At Seatac Airport this would have been stressful but not a huge problem. The intense degrees of security in all of Israel, however, ensured that there was no possible way we could get through the numerous security checkpoints, have our bags searched, be patted down for weapons and be interrogated about our reasons for traveling to Israel, and still make our 14h30 flight. After being yelled at by airport security for arriving so late, we were informed that there was no possible way we could get on the plane and were sent to the ticketing offices of Malev Hungarian Airlines to try and change our flights home.

Malev was absolutely no help – the earliest flight they could book us wasn’t until Saturday, a full day after R and I were both supposed to be flying home to the U.S. Unable to take that flight, our only option was to buy completely new tickets, so we headed downstairs to the last-minute flight deals counter. There we found an extremely helpful young guy who informed us of what no one else had – that there was an Israeli airport (among other things) strike planned to begin the following morning. If we didn’t make it out of Tel Aviv by midnight Tuesday, we’d be stuck in Israel indefinitely.

With the help of a colleague, our last-minute flight guy found us a last-minute flight. So last minute that we only had a half hour before check-in was scheduled to close. At $450, it was a pricey unexpected expenditure, but far cheaper than any other ticket options (most running upwards of $800). The only problem remaining being that I didn’t have the money – with only 3 days left of my year in Paris I was down to the last centimes of my budget for the year, and definitely hadn’t factored in an emergency plane ticket fund. I ran upstairs to collect-call my parents for a money transfer while R got our names and passport information into the computer.

Once I’d hung up the phone, I raced back downstairs and our last-minute ticket guy finished processing my ticket. Then he took R’s card to swipe and we got some disturbing news – she didn’t have any money either, but with only 10 minutes left before check-in was to close, had no time to rouse her parents at 4h asking for a money transfer that would (because of her bank) take 5 days to process anyway. She ran back upstairs to call and get the number of her dad’s credit card as I ran to check in and tell the Lufthansa people that a second late traveler might be arriving.

By the time I made it to the gate though, having been rushed through back passages by a kind security guard, it was clear that no second traveler was arriving. What could I do? I had to board my flight, and spent the next 12 hours thinking Oh crap, I’ve left Rachael in Israel. What on earth am I going to do? on repeat. Thank goodness for wine on airplanes, eh?

I made it back to Paris at midnight and crashed immediately. R finally appeared around 4pm with wild stories of her own to tell. With no way to get money for a ticket, she’d called the only person she could think of – the Israeli film actor we’d met during our first few days in Tel Aviv. Let me just say that he is one amazing guy. After knowing R for only a few days, he forked over $450 to buy her a plane ticket to Paris (with promises of Western Union payback transfers, of course). She had another stroke of luck when the start of the strike was pushed back to 6h, to allow all travelers time to get out of the airport – her flight left at 5h45.

Bum pizza

R and I had a lot of errands to run today, it being our last day in Paris and all. Some errands were imperative, like closing our bank accounts and canceling our Internet services, while some were of the more frivolous variety (buying the latest Harry Potter book to read on the flight home). We had a lot to accomplish, but they were all handily located in the Saint Germain/ Saint Michel area, so we were able to get a lot done in a limited amount of time.

After picking up our final grades and diplomas from Sciences Po, and before picking up a Western Union money order for Rachael at La Poste, we stopped near église Saint Germain for a pizza lunch. Since it was already nearing 15h, the dining area of our favorite student-y pizza place was closed, so we took our pizzas à emporter and found a bench to eat them on.

What we didn’t notice when we sat down was that we’d chosen a dining seat directly across from three hungry-looking homeless men drinking beers. I was about halfway into my first slice when I glanced up and saw them eyeing us. We couldn’t have picked a more awkward spot to eat. Not only were we weirded out being stared at while we enjoyed our lunches, but we felt like jerks flaunting our delicious pizzas in front of three guys who had probably gone a while since having a good meal.

We ate half of our pizzas, then carefully consolidated the rest into one box and balanced it carefully on the top of a trash can as we left. We’d considered walking over and offering it to them, but decided it might come off as somewhat insulting and demeaning – after all, they hadn’t asked us for any food or money. As we walked away, I glanced back once and saw the men already diving into our pizza.

Saying goodbye…or not

So this is it for me and Paris – my airport shuttle arrives in just under seven hours, and from that moment on, I’ll forsake all my claims on this city. I spent the day wandering around the city and the evening relaxing in R’s apartment. For whatever reason, we didn’t feel any pressure to go out and have a real “last night” in Paris, or do anything in particular “for the last time.” Over the course of a year we’ve had the chance to do most of the things we wanted to do as many times as we wanted to do them. We felt no need to do it up big, and said our goodbyes to Paris by watching Friends and eating ice cream in R’s living room. It wasn’t the most spectacular of evenings, but it was pleasant all the same.

Sitting cross-legged on a bed in a kibbutz in northern Israel last Saturday night, squinting and sewing a missing button back onto an Israeli army uniform was definitely one of the more dramatic how did I get here moments of my year. Come to think of it, I’ve had a lot of those moments over the past two weeks.

From spending the night at a free hostel in Jerusalem’s Old City run by Orthodox Jews who kept us up half the night debating Torah; to sitting on the couch next to an Israeli boy whose name I still can’t quite pronounce as he casually flips through TV channels, pausing to say, Oh, that’s my show!; to being cheered at bars for the simple fact of having come to Israel to “hang out” rather than find my heritage: It was a strange and enlightening vacation.

Rachael and I arrived in Tel Aviv on a Thursday and spent our first few days there, hanging out by the beach, exploring Jaffa and going to the Shuk (market) by day and spending our nights with an old friend of R’s who was living in Israel for a few months. He’s apparently friends with a big group of Israeli movie stars, stage actors and musicians, because every time we saw him, whether it was hanging out at the apartment of an actor our age, whose latest movie just went to the Cannes Film Festival, watching the Brazil-Argentina football match or going to the theatre, we were recognizing (with help) people from movies and previews we’d seen back in Paris (and elsewhere).

Through R’s friend, we met an actor named Yoav, who invited us to go see him act in Plonter, a play (in Hebrew with English and Arabic subtitles) about the occupation – so controversial that a couple sitting behind me stood up and stormed out in the middle of a scene of an Israeli soldier harassing a Palestinian boy.

From Tel Aviv, we moved onto Jerusalem, where we spent one night in the clean (though slightly creepy) and free hostel before moving onto the floor of an apartment on the campus of Hebrew University. We spent a day exploring the Old City, another at Yad Vashem. We spent our third day floating in the Dead Sea, and a night seeing an Israeli band (who we’d met at a party in Tel Aviv) perform at a Jerusalem club.

After Jerusalem, we took a bus to Afula to meet another of R’s friends near his kibbutz. We stayed there for a weekend, hanging out with a group of young Israeli-born Americans who had returned to serve their time in the army (their rooms at the kibbutz are paid for by the Israeli army). It was an interesting experience for sure, but I think I might just be too used to my role in capitalist America to appreciate a place where everyone’s incomes go into a shared pot, and each family has a golf cart to drive around to the shared pool and dining hall.

We left the kibbutz Sunday morning to spend a day in Haifa and old Akko before heading back to Tel Aviv for two more nights out and one more glorious day at the beach.

Israel is probably the most westernized of any country in the Middle East – it has an Ace Hardware, for pete’s sake, but even so it’s like a different world. When R and I stopped to ask directions anywhere, the first question we’d get back was are you okay with buses? We weren’t particularly more concerned about being on buses than being anywhere else in Israel – yes they have, in the past, been targets for bombs, but so have coffee shops, restaurants and night clubs. The Tel Aviv beach is swept every night by a huge Zamboni-like machine that sifts through the sand checking for bombs. Still, most people are the wariest of buses – a guy we met in Tel Aviv told us that when he was in middle school he and his friends would insult each other by saying Go take the number five bus. Once on the buses, though, there are constant patrols by security guards, who hop on at one stop, sweep through the bus and disembark at the next stop to sweep the next bus that comes along. There was never a moment when I was seriously concerned about being blown up on a bus.

Something else that really struck me was the presence of religion – I mean obviously, Israel was created to be a Jewish state, and Jerusalem alone contains the holiest sites for three different religions. I knew the question of religion was a predominant one, I just wasn’t quite prepared for the question of my religion to become so important. At first it was just puzzled people trying to understand what I was doing in Israel. Do you speak any Hebrew? Wait, you’re not Jewish? Why are you traveling to Israel? Do you have friends there? Family? You’re not Jewish? These questions made perfect sense to me. I mean why was I in Israel? The honest truth sounded weird every time I heard it coming out of my mouth. Just hanging out, going to the beach… is definitely not an answer passport control at Ben Gurion International hears often.

Are you Jewish? was obviously the first question posed to me at Heritage House (the free hostel), but once they’d confirmed that I wasn’t, the question never came up again. This was where I’d expected to be the most rigorously interrogated, but the people I seemed to puzzle the most were actually the secular Israelis. Fascinated by the fact that I wasn’t, in fact, Jewish, they became obsessed with trying to figure out what I was. So you’re Christian, then, they’d state confidently, Ehhh, not exactly. I mean I have a Christmas tree every year…but I’m just not really anything. This is where they got really confused. I’m not Jewish, not Christian, obviously not Muslim – so what was I? Okay, so you’re agnostic? I tried my best to explain to each new questioner that while I don’t associate myself with any particular religion, I’m not atheist and not really agnostic.

The honest truth is that I’m just not anything. The best way to classify me would probably be something like apathetic – I just don’t care. Most conversations ended with me saying something along the lines of religion is not a factor in my life, and I think at that point people just got bored, so I was let off the hook. I had imagined my visit to Israel as more of an outsider looking in, but once my plane had landed, my spirituality became fair game. It didn’t bother me at all – I had a lot of interesting discussions, but it was kind of exhausting. I think I probably discussed my “religious background” more in the past two weeks than in the whole of my life so far.

After determining my religion (or lack thereof), the next question was invariably pro-Israel or pro-Palestine. Actually, this was never even a question – hanging out with Israelis, I was assumed to be pro-Israel and was thus included in disturbing conversations about things like the “unsanitary” nature of Arab restaurants. There were a lot of times I wanted to speak up and say no, I don’t agree with this, but as a Westerner just passing through the country I became a pansy in the face of the pro-Israel furor. The way this conflict has boiled down to the people who live in it has become almost a question of Jews vs. Arabs. Obviously it’s more complicated than that, but it’s an easy distinction to make – we were warned not to go near the Arab quarters after dark, people make jokes like, Well if you’re worried, you can take one of the Arab buses… and we were confronted with people like the man staying in our hostel who came right out and said I hate the Arabs, but he also told us he hates Shiksa (non-Jewish women – i.e., me), so he was just bigoted in every direction.

Racial profiling is a disturbing but prevalent reality. R, whose ethnicity is not easily discernable (and could potentially be Arab) was stopped at every security checkpoint and quizzed about her origins, while I breezed right through. I guess these are the disturbing realities of living in a conflict zone.

Overall, the trip was fun, relaxing, and at times disturbing – partially because of conflict-related issues and partially because of the Crocs invasion. Seriously, I’ve never seen so many Crocs at once in my life. One notable quote heard on the street was This is Israel – of course everybody has Crocs!